These seems like a bit of misinformation. Direct X is tightly integrated with the Windows kernel it isn't an easy task to port by any means. They could potentially be using a wrapper or a recompiled for the DX instructions but both these options would incure performance penalties thus would not be recommended by any means.

The fact is that the graphics for Ps3, Ps4 and Vita are all primarily coded via LibGMC which is more efficient than DirectX in terms of system performance and according to most developers actually easer to work with nowadays. It is a testament that Direct X and even OpenGL are not really required on the Playstation platform any more.

Ps3 was such a difficult beast to code for that Sony really focused on building easy yet powerful development tools and ow they are really seeing the benefits.

These seems like a bit of misinformation. Direct X is tightly integrated with the Windows kernel it isn't an easy task to port by any means. They could potentially be using a wrapper or a recompiled for the DX instructions but both these options would incure performance penalties thus would not be recommended by any means.

The fact is that the graphics for Ps3, Ps4 and Vita are all primarily coded via LibGMC which is more efficient than DirectX in terms of system performance and according to most developers actually easer to work with nowadays. It is a testament that Direct X and even OpenGL are not really required on the Playstation platform any more.

Ps3 was such a difficult beast to code for that Sony really focused on building easy yet powerful development tools and ow they are really seeing the benefits.

I think the nod goes more to small developers who don't generally create massive resource intensive games in the first place. For the real big fish and AAA studios, they will without a doubt opt for using LibGCM. With DX API support, though, developers who don't have a lot of development resources can still get their game up and running on the PS4 and likely were not going to run into the bottlenecks that bootstrapping DX onto BSD will incur. We are talking about a console that performs better than most gaming PCs out in the "cloud" so to speak.

War is fought for silence. For, it is with silence, you will know that war has ended.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't they get the $#@! sued out of them if they said they were using DirectX and actually weren't. It sound like DirectX core with additions. I don't know but I'm sure just like anything else they would need rights just to use the name. Otherwise it would have been called something completely different if it was a clone.

I don't know, but that doesn't seem to be the case here because I don't see where it says that sony is gonna be using actual DX. It just says they are improving on some features of direct x.

Those improvements include better shader pipeline access, improved debugging support features out the box, and much lower level access to the system hardware enabling developers to do “more cool things.” That’s achieved not only through an modified DirectX 11.1 API, but also a secondary low-level API specifically for the PS4 hardware.

After this many years, you guys should know it is the GPU that supports DirectX and OpenGL. API stands for Application Program Interface. DX and OGL are just the software interfaces to the hardware accelerated graphics circuits on the GPU. There is another post here with a link to an article about the XBone development:

// Draw a triangle with 3 vertices. triangleVertices is an array of 3 vertices.
m_d3dDeviceContext->Draw(ARRAYSIZE(triangleVertices),0);

It's the programmer's choice what they want to program with, it all gets compiled to binary and that is what is fed to the driver to interface to the hardware on the GPU. There are 3rd party that prefer DX in-house, so they will use those software tools, which you do have to buy from MS.

Sony won't use DX because they don't see any reason to. Sony tends to prefer OGL and now augmented with the PSSL, which Sony claims has extensions beyond DX11.1 and OpenGL4.

I think the real question is whether or not this will garner some more love from the traditional PC only devs. Using the same APIs will help them port their graphics engines a bit easier, but at what cost to the overall quality. I was going to do a bit of smack talk about it, but the comment " but Sony has taken the time to improve upon it, pushing the feature set beyond what is available for PC games development." made me say, hey at least Sony has done somethings to make sure it's trying to be optimized for their GPU.

I don't expect anyone using it to come out with the best possible graphics, but it shouldn't be a crap port either.

The Indie developers are the ones who may actually get the best bang for their buck out this.

I don't know, but that doesn't seem to be the case here because I don't see where it says that sony is gonna be using actual DX. It just says they are improving on some features of direct x.

It said Sony Claims with quotations DirectX 11.1+. Hence someone from Sony said it.

Sony claims that the PS4 will support a "DirectX 11.1+", with the plus standing for better debugger and more direct access to the shader pipeline. Exact details are few and far between, but since the GPU at the heart of the PS4 is based on Graphics Core Next, we don't expect enormous surprises.

Yep. This means, quite literally, all a developer needs to do is optimize their code from PC to run on PS4. Now, it almost literally does itself unless you want to squeeze the system using SPURS and get dirty.

This WILL save developers and publishers some coin. It WILL mean that PS4 gets treated infinitely better than PS3 did. ..and well, it kinda goes without saying regarding that other 'box'..

Err, no it doesn't. The only way you can get Directx to run on the PS4 is through a wrapper service. There is one, but its an intermediate library layer that will cause an extra layer of translation.

The guy in the article is getting it wrong, I think he meant "DirectX 11 feature set".
Which is entirely true.

Sony has their own API, including PSSL.

And honestly, when you code correctly anyway, the DX calls can be set aside in a library that can easily be replaced with a PS4 equivalent.

Originally Posted by LeisureSuitLarry

If the devs are creating a multiplat, a common API would make it easier.

Its not really going to make much difference.

A well coded game already dissociates itself from it's API.

For example.

A traditional method would be, set up you textures, set up your buffers, then a call a draw command.

It ain't that difficult. The actual engine code is completely ignorant of what API is being used. It simply sees a task to be done, and hands it off to a little black box of code, it doesn't care if that code is DX of OpenGl, or PS4 API.

In the PC video game world, there is mainly Windows and most PC games are DX. In the console world, some games can be DX and some OpenGL. Epic, for one, is DX, and their development environment is intertwined with DX. DX and OpenGL are basically specialized software languages. The hardware acceleration on the graphics card is software configurable. The high level code is compiled to binary, that is passed off to the drivers to do the hardware interfacing, and the graphics card needs to have the circuitry to configure to some feature like a vertex shader. The circuitry on the graphics chip has to have that feature built in. That is what results in GPU upgrades. Similar operation can still be achieved with extensions, up to some point.

Sony studios is not going to use DX. They are saying the GPU in the PS4 supports DX11.1 for those devs that choose to use DX as their development environment, not necessarily that any of Sony studios would. The GPU hardware is fully compliant with DX11.1 and OpenGL4.0. Sony is just saying, in their expert opinion, the CUSTOMIZED GPU in the PS4 is capable of exceeding them. Remember, Sony studios several years ago unified across the globe, to share their development products with each other. Naughty Dog is leading the ICE Team and there was news about the cross pollination of shader development a couple years ago. Apparently, PSSL is the fruit of these efforts, and suffice to say, we have not even seen shades of the shaders yet.

Pacing in wait of Sony's imminent DOOM!...since 2006

PS4 - The Only Hardcore Gaming Console = All Your Baserape Are Belong To Us

It was all done on MS part to prevent a Google and Sony partnership as far as the OS and Open GL from what I hear

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that (developers) want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?"
--Kaz Hirai, CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment

It ain't that difficult. The actual engine code is completely ignorant of what API is being used. It simply sees a task to be done, and hands it off to a little black box of code, it doesn't care if that code is DX of OpenGl, or PS4 API.

Great explanation, as per usual. I'm not sure why some people seem fixated on whether or not PS4 can use Direct X or not. Maybe it's because of how the 360 dominated in better quality 3rd party games while the PS3 ports suffered? That had nothing or little to do with the API's used though and more to do with just how darned complicated it was to code efficient game code on the PS3 with all the SPU's, etc. Bottom line is that OpenGL and other libraries are very comparable and sometimes superior to Microsoft's Direct X. Valve even very publicly demonstrated that running some code in Open GL was significantly faster than using Direct X, even on Windows. So the API's matter less. It's the architecture and power of the machine itself that matters.